- The Rebound & Recovery program will teach children as young as 3 to manage their emotions and express them.
- The program will be rolled out over the next year at 23 preschools in the Leon County Schools system and at the Stoops Center at FSU.
- Watch now to hear from a volunteer teacher who implemented some of these strategies in a test run of the program.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Less than 50% of Pre-K students in Leon County are kindergarten ready from an emotional standpoint. A partnership between Florida State University and Leon County Schools is looking to change that with the Rebound & Recovery program.
"Children are not necessarily learning those socialization skills and coping skills because they have not had a chance to.
The Rebound & Recovery program is for Pre-K students as young as 3. It's funded by the Childrens' Service Council of Leon County. The council's executive director Cecka Rose Green says for kids who were born into a world of social distancing and isolation due to COVID or have dealt with emotional trauma, this education is as important as any.
"When children are that young, they don't know what they're feeling and they don't know how to express that."
This early training can show them how to handle things as small as conflict resolution to...
"I'll even go further to say this is the first step to alleviate youth gun violence."
I did some digging into the numbers and here's what I found out.
I told you the kindergarten readiness numbers for all of Leon County, but looking at the Collegetown neighborhood, things look even worse.
According to the CSC's 2021 needs assessment, rates in the 32301 zip code are 35%.
Over in the 32304 zip code, just 16%. Those are some of the lowest in the entire area.
Rebound & Recovery is just getting started, but I took a trip to The Learning Pavilion, where this program was tested. I spoke with volunteer teacher Pamela Sampson, who says the new techniques have had positive impacts.
"Take a deep breath, take a deep breath."
This is Pamela teaching a young student to take a moment and breath before expressing his emotions. She says exercises like these have had great effects.
"They got a chance to manage their emotion by talking, going into small group settings with them and talking about -- with them expressing their emotions, teaching them how to express it, what each emotion means..."
"What we hope is that we see fewer children dismissed from class or sent home for behavioral issues..."
Teachers and other Pre-K employees will go through four training sessions over the next year as the program is launched. In Collegetown, I'm Alberto Camargo, ABC27.
